The rotary flexible-agitator system is designed for removing an obstruction from within a patient""s vessel through a tube of small diameter and particularly for opening vessels, such as blood vessels, that tend to become obstructed by a thrombi.
Current treatments such as pharmacological, surgical or trans-catheter procedures can be time-consuming, traumatic and expensive. Thus, objects of the present invention are to simplify, improve and shorten the process by enabling the physician to navigate and thread the system through obstructions, curved vessels and bifurcations and then break the obstruction to small pieces that are simultaneously removed through the tube by a combination of suction and mechanical means. To further reduce the likelihood of pieces of the obstruction being carried down stream into the vasculature the system can be delivered through a guiding catheter with a distal barrier that temporarily occludes flow through the vessel during the procedure. These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following discussion and the accompanying drawings.